Review: Book of Love

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Cordelia Kelly is busy, focused, worried about the future of her fledgling bookbinding business. When a handsome man stops her on the street to pester her with questions, she gives him the consideration he deserves: none.

That handsome man happens to be the Duke of Stroud, and he finds Cordelia’s hostility hilarious. He gives chase, if only for the pleasure of provoking her again.

He thinks life is a game. She doesn’t play around.

Within days of meeting Cordelia, Stroud sets a marching band on a matchmaking mama, defaces a local monument, and ropes Cordelia into a round of his favorite game.

In that same time, Cordelia stitches together the complete works of Mary Wollstonecraft, enthusiastically devotes herself to a petition demanding expanded legal rights for married women, and beats Stroud at his own game.

She defies all expectations. So does he.

Most people dismiss Stroud as a fool—himself included. When Cordelia sees past his lighthearted facade, he’s terrified and also... in love?

Stroud barges into Cordelia’s life, offering her all the material and sensual temptations she’s learned to do without. She usually has willpower to spare, but turning him down takes all of it, and then some. He’s oddly irresistible.

Or maybe they’re just perfect for one another.

Genre: historical romance

Publication date: April 2021

Mature content: yes

Review: At first I was a bit thrown off by Book of Love. Cordelia seems like such a serious person, focused on her work (at a time and place when it was rare for women to work independently), trying to do the best by her clients and make ends meet, and Stroud, to be honest, looks and sounds like a complete fool, especially in those first few pages of the book. In the end, I came to love them both, especially together, and I believe they were perfectly matched.

 

I had two concerns with this book, though. First, there's a secondary plot involving the political background. While it is interesting to understand how little women were entitled to at the time, and the effort it took to change in their favor even a small detail in the law, there is so much information thrown at us in the book that, quite frankly, I was lost after a short while. And second, by the time you reach the middle of the story there are so many characters and secondary plots going around that (1) you tend to get lost (again) and (2) you start feeling that the mainstream plot is moving way too slowly.

While I really liked reading Book of Love and I still recommend it, bear in mind that this is not a fast paced book and you need to wait for some things to happen while reading about a lot of others in between.

Book of Love is book 2 in the Sweetness and Light series by Erin Satie. I didn't read book one (yet) and I don't believe I missed a lot of this story because of it. It's true at some point I was a bit overwhelmed by all the secondary characters, but I'm not really sure that was entirely the result of not having the previous instalment.  

Happy readings!

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